


warm you up from the inside

by sleepyshamrocks



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, Rivals to Lovers, this trope will never die, took a break from writing lipsoul to write more lipsoul, u ever think 'i too want a love/hate relationship with my sworn enemy' bc i do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24572866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepyshamrocks/pseuds/sleepyshamrocks
Summary: The way Jungeun sees it, she has two options: ignore Jinsol and follow through with her own proposition, disobeying a direct order from Principal Jeong, her third favorite adult after her mom and Elisabeth Moss, or actually spend a week ‘getting to know’ Jinsol, whatever that means.Damn her academic integrity.-After finishing her senior year and being accepted to the university of her dreams, Jungeun only has one more week to survive before graduation. It seems easy enough, until distractions come in the form of a pesky non-assignment, her first high school party, and popular girl Jung Jinsol.slightly inspired by booksmart (2019)
Relationships: Jeon Heejin/Kim Hyunjin, Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul/Kim Jungeun | Kim Lip
Comments: 29
Kudos: 462





	warm you up from the inside

**Author's Note:**

> i graduated high school today! so here's loona graduating high school too because i'm nothing if not self-indulgent
> 
> *forgive the american mannerisms in a korean setting. i had a crisis trying to fit their behavior with the environment.  
> *Triple A is an insult that i took from booksmart. it stands for ‘anybody, anytime, anywhere’, basically a slang for hoe.

**MONDAY**

“This is fucking ridiculous. This…this is an insult to academia!” Jungeun spits, waving the poster at Hyunjin’s face. She’s angry, fueled by the fury of a thousand suns. The paper crunches under her fist as she struggles to take deep, calming breaths. 

Last period had already gone not according to plan, with her accidentally botching the final History presentation by not downloading the file beforehand. She squirmed under Ms. Chou’s gaze for three, palm-sweat inducing minutes as they waited for Google Slides to reconnect and proceeded to stutter through her introduction from the build-up of nerves. 

This is the last thing she needs. 

Hyunjin grunts and shoos her arm away. “Dude, it’s getting into my lasagna.”

“Who cares about your lasagna! Do you see this?” She jabs a finger at the poster. “Why. Is. She. Here?!”

“Uhh, I’m going to take a guess and say it’s because she’s going to the same college as you? Actually, nevermind. It’s because she’s going to the same college as you,” Hyunjin deadpans, poking her fork at her meager lunch. “Are you gonna eat yours?”

Jungeun pushes her plate towards Hyunjin a little more aggressively than needed. “Take it. I’m feeling nauseous. There is no way Triple A got into SNU. I grinded for three fucking years throughout high school while she shook her ass on regional stages. She must’ve cheated. There’s no other explanation.”

“Hey, that’s derogatory and you _know_ you shouldn’t call her that.” Hyunjin’s fork clangs on the plate as she shakes her head, clearly tired of Jungeun’s tirade. 

“Everyone else does,” Jungeun mutters.

“I know you don’t like her –,”

“Understatement,” she scoffs.

“– but you can’t deny that she’s done pretty well for herself these past years. Soccer captain, volleyball vice-captain, _and_ she found the dance team. They’re nationally ranked, you know. Heejin told me,” Hyunjin points out. 

“Her test scores are shit. She never makes an effort during class. Her attendance record is absolute garbage, and I know that for a fact.”

“How? That’s literally confidential?”

Jungeun shrugs. “Principal Jeong lets me get away with whatever I want.” She starts tearing the poster into tiny little pieces, ripping through the bolded _Congratulations, SNU Class of 2024!_ mocking her existence. 

It’s not that she doesn’t think Jinsol deserves a higher education. The pursuit of knowledge is something that Jungeun respects, and also what Korea needs desperately for its youth right now. It’s just that Jinsol is…everything Jungeun stands against, and she refuses to accept that there is a shred of commonality between them, because there absolutely isn’t. There can’t be.

  * She’s a party animal
  * She once brought vodka to school hidden in a water bottle and managed to finish the whole thing right beside Jungeun before homeroom ended
  * She’s a part-time model for a super popular streetwear brand (okay, to be fair, this one isn’t that bad)
  * She goes through boyfriends like Jungeun goes through 2B pencils, which earns her the less-than-stellar nickname
  * The list goes fucking on



“I can’t go to college with her,” Jungeun wails, burying her head in her arms. “What will people say?”

“Jesus Christ. Get your shit together,” Hyunjin snaps, abandoning her second plate of lasagna in favor of shaking Jungeun’s shoulders. “You got into the Harvard of Korea. So did Jinsol. Boo hoo. No one’s going to look down on you for it. Now,” she pushes back her chair and stands, hands on her hips, “I’m going to look for Heejin. You’re welcome to join me, but if you’d rather wallow in your misery here, I’m not going to stop you.”

She’s right. Jungeun feels guilty for overreacting. SNU has been her dream school since she received her first lab coat on her fourth birthday. She missed years of Friday night parties and class trips and hangouts at the mall with Hyunjin and Heejin just to work her ass off in school. And now, she got in.

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Jungeun apologizes. “I achieved my life-long goal and I’m not going to let her ruin this for me.”

“That’s the spirit. Now come on, I promised Heejin I would meet her five minutes ago.”

Jungeun tilts her head in confusion. “Then why did you just say that now?”

“Because I had to finish your lasagna first, duh.”

She spends the rest of lunch third-wheeling Hyunjin and her girlfriend in the art room, which doubles as the practice room for the dance team due to the open space and abundance of mirrors scattered along the walls. Heejin once told her that Jinsol petitioned to use the auditorium as their base of operations but pulled it when Jiwoo slipped on the lacquered wood panels while doing a floor routine and got a concussion. 

On one hand, Jungeun cackles at the thought of Jinsol’s failure. On the other hand, she genuinely feels bad for Jiwoo, who always shares her animal crackers during student council meetings, and can’t help but feel pity as she watches Heejin’s elbow crash into a life-sized mannequin, toppling it over. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Heejin reassures her girlfriend, who rushed over at the sign of distress. 

“This entire room seems like a safety hazard,” Jungeun wrinkles her nose from where she’s perched on one of the tables. “I mean, that is a glass sculpture a few meters to your left.”

“Honestly, I don’t really have anything to practice. I guess I’m just gonna miss this place.” Heejin looks around the room wistfully. “Memories were made here. Friendships forged. Drama discussed.”

“Virginities taken,” Hyunjin supplies.

Jungeun hops off the table as soon as she hears that. “Disgusting.”

“We had our first kiss here, didn’t we?” Heejin says sweetly, eyes only for Hyunjin. 

“Aww, babe.” Hyunjin’s eyes tear up. “I’m so glad we’re going to be rooming together for college. I can’t wait to have stress-sex with you on top of our textbooks.”

Jungeun gags again, but to her unfortunate luck, someone enters the class at the same time, witnessing her crossed eyes and extended tongue. 

“Finally, someone cursed you!” Jinsol claps. “Go on. Die!”

Jungeun composes herself in a hurry, brushing down her plaid skirt while shooting daggers at the newcomer. “Shut up, Jung. You’re intruding.”

“This is my territory, baby.” Jinsol spreads her arms wide. “You’re the pathogen burrowing its way into my space. Immune system, attack!” She motions towards Heejin and Hyunjin and swivels to point at Jungeun. 

“Very mature.” The sight of Jinsol in her pressed blouse and neat skirt, exactly a mirror of the picture on the posters plastered all over school, makes Jungeun’s mood drop even lower.

“No, what’s mature is me congratulating you for your acceptance to SNU. Congrats!” Jinsol flashes a wide, toothy smile, but all Jungeun can see is the slyness behind her eyes. 

Jinsol has backed her into a corner. If she doesn’t return the sentiment, she’ll look petty as hell. Either way, she’s already looking like the smaller person.

“Congratulations to you, too,” Jungeun says through gritted teeth. 

Hyunjin and Heejin’s eyes bounce back and forth between them like they’re watching a tennis match.

Jinsol claps her hands. “Well, now that that’s over, I have to go talk to Sooyoung and plan for the senior party. It’s going to be epic, and you’re not invited. Toodles.” She struts towards the door, fully aware of the eyes on her. 

Before she can stop herself, Jungeun calls out, “wait.” 

Jinsol turns around in surprise, hand poised on the handle. 

“Did you cut your hair?”

“What?” She twirls the strands hanging just below her shoulders almost self-consciously. “Um, yeah. I did.”

“Well, you look like a witch.” 

Jinsol’s glare returns, and this time, it’s amplified. “Whatever. I hope you choke on a banana.”

“Why would I eat one in the first place? I’m allergic,” Jungeun counters.

“That’s the point, asshole.” The door slams shut. 

Jungeun continues glaring in the same direction for a few seconds until Hyunjin’s voice breaks the silence. “That was entertaining.” 

“For real. I thought I was the only one feeling the tension,” Heejin agrees.

Jungeun feels a headache brewing. Every interaction with Jinsol leaves her feeling like the rug has been pulled from under her feet, and there is nothing she would like to do more than pull the same rug from under Jinsol’s. 

At least half the day is already over. 

Apparently, she spoke too soon.

“Please, Dahyun. Anyone else but her,” she pleads, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible while her classmates drag their desks to join their partners. 

Her teacher sighs. “First of all, I told you to call me Ms. Kim when we’re in class. The school policy doesn’t care if we’re cousins, Jungeun. And secondly, no. You two have been fighting in my class for an entire year. You need this, trust me.”

“But –,”

“Go back to your seat or I’ll out you during our next family reunion,” Dahyun hisses.

Jungeun presses an affronted hand to her chest. “Now _that’s_ against school policy, Miss Homophobia. What if I start blabbering about your little tryst with Ms. Chou, hmm?”

“Just sit down, Jungeun,” Dahyun says wearily. 

“Hmph.”

So she lost the battle. With a heavy, heavy heart, Jungeun inches over to where Jinsol is waiting expectantly, chin propped on one fist. “Hey, partner.”

“Do not speak to me.”

“Attention.” Dahyun clears her throat, waiting for the class to settle down. “As you know, senior year has finally come to an end. Most, if not all, of you have been accepted to a university or decided to forge your own path after high school. Your efforts have finally paid off!”

“Then why are you assigning us more work?” someone shouts from the back.

“I’m getting there, Hyejoo. Look, even though you guys are basically done here, legally we still have to keep you in class for a week until the graduation ceremony on Saturday. Principal Jeong asked me to assign an activity to keep you busy and, more importantly, present in school during the entire period. So, here it is.” Dahyun pauses for dramatic effect. Nobody plays into it. 

“As your English teacher, I want you to write about your partner. Be it in whatever format you want: a report, a poem, a letter, it’s up to each of you. That means you have a week to get to know your classmate personally, starting from today.”

_WHAT?_

“Objection,” Jungeun roars, raising a hand so fast that her elbow knocks into Jinsol’s jaw. “That’s - that’s crazy!”

“Listen, you guys have known each other for years and I know for a fact that most of you have never had a conversation with each other that lasted longer than how fast it takes for the lunch ladies to microwave my burrito. So take this opportunity to learn about each other. If you have any complaints, take it to the principal. He’s the one who approved the assignment,” Dahyun shrugs, putting an earbud on. “Now, go talk to each other and don’t be too loud about it.”

To put it in words, Jungeun is devastated. Horrified. Appalled. How did it come to this? How has her plan to burn every paraphernalia amassed throughout the last three years been derailed this hard? She thought she was done with these people. 

“Listen, Jungeun –,”

“Did you plan this?” Jungeun breathes through her teeth. “I swear, if I find out that you had your dirty little claws all over this thing –,”

“Jeez, relax. As if I want anything to do with you.” Jinsol makes a face. “To answer your question, no. You’re not the only one suffering here.”

“Ugh.”

Neither of them says anything for a while. Jungeun is pretty sure that they can just text each other facts about themselves and write the paper separately at the end of the week before handing it in, and she tells Jinsol as much.

“That’s a cop-out,” she argues. “No, we should do this properly.”

“What? Why? I thought you hated me,” Jungeun asks, the suspicion clear in her voice.

“Oh, I do. It’s just fun to see you stressed all the time.”

“Okay, we are definitely doing my thing.” Jungeun pulls out her phone. 

“Then maybe I’ll write an email to SNU’s admissions office about how you’re not a ‘team player’,” Jinsol taunts, air quoting with two fingers. “Perhaps they’d like to hear about your inability to cooperate with people from different backgrounds. Then we wouldn’t have to go to the same college. Win-win!”

Jungeun swears she hears glass crunching from inside her fist. The headache is fully brewed and threatening to bubble over. “Jinsol…”

“I’m kidding.” The girl rolls her eyes. “Look, whether you like it or not, which I don’t, we’re still going to meet each other in a few months. We’re probably going to live in the same dorm for a year and we’re definitely going to see each other during freshman orientation.”

Jungeun shuts her eyes. “Why would you speak it into existence?” she whispers. 

“Which _means_ ,” Jinsol continues, “that things will be easier if we learn to be civil. Which is impossible right now with the way you’re acting.”

The way Jungeun sees it, she has two options: ignore Jinsol and follow through with her own proposition, disobeying a direct order from Principal Jeong, her third favorite adult after her mom and Elisabeth Moss, or actually spend a week ‘getting to know’ Jinsol, whatever that means.

Damn her academic integrity. 

“Fine,” Jungeun acquiesces, trying to convince herself that this experience will build character and not be a total waste of her time. “So, should we meet after school?”

“No can do. I have a date with Eunwoo this evening,” Jinsol answers. She has a dopey smile on her face that Jungeun thinks looks stupid but also kind of cute, with her dimples showing and everything.

She has to slap herself out of that one.

“Weren’t you dating Myungjun two months ago?” she asks out of curiosity. She’s pretty sure she saw them together at the bowling alley Hyunjin dragged her to last Tuesday.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but he and I didn’t work out,” Jinsol sniffs, typing something on her phone. Jungeun internally whistles when she sees how long that paragraph is getting. “Eunwoo, on the other hand, is the love of my life.”

Yikes. 

“Whatever, you’re the one who insisted on this. Text me when you’re available.” 

Jungeun takes the distracted silence as a dismissal and opts to search for Hyunjin instead. It isn’t hard to find her at all, considering that she’s in the middle of a screaming match with her partner, Hyejoo.

“ _GAMING IS A LUCRATIVE CAREER, YOU FUCKING NORMIE._ ”

“ _PRETTY SURE THAT’S NOT WHAT YOUR CSAT SCORE SAYS, INCEL_.”

“ _I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND_.”

Jungeun turns around to look at the teacher’s desk. Dahyun is bopping along to a song with her eyes closed, oblivious to the chaos around her. 

High school is a nightmare. 

* * *

**TUESDAY**

They make plans to meet at Starbucks the following day right after school. Jungeun picks a nice spot beside the floor-to-ceiling windows, thinking that the public display will deter them from duking it out if that should ever happen. They’ve never actually interacted outside of class before, because Jinsol is too cool to frequent the library during weekends and Jungeun is too smart to attend parties thrown by her classmates. She takes a nervous sip from her drink and tries to reassure herself that things won’t escalate to the point of a brawl. 

Except now it’s twenty minutes past 5 PM, she’s already halfway through her caramel macchiato, and Jinsol is still nowhere in sight. 

Fuck this. Which menu option should she strongarm Jinsol into buying for her? She’s not in the mood for something sweet, so a panini would be nice. Warm, toasty bread surrounding layers of ham and cheese. Salty, smoky, a little floppy from the reheating. 

“Yo.” 

Jungeun startles. Jinsol plops on the seat opposite her, a non-Starbucks mango smoothie in hand. She’s changed out of her uniform, wearing a leather jacket and ripped jeans, and Jungeun suddenly becomes aware of how disheveled she must look after she spent half an hour chasing Chaewon around the class for stealing her phone during last period.

“You’re late.”

“I know.” 

It’s only then that she realizes how glum Jinsol looks. She fiddles with her phone with an uncharacteristically dejected expression and pulls at the stray threads by her knee. 

Jungeun doesn’t have the heart to ask for her panini. 

“So…do you want to start?” she inquires.

“No, no. You go first.”

Typical. “Well, Dahyun said we can choose any format we want, right? I’m thinking of writing a poem. Short, sweet, and best of all, she can’t criticize whatever I write due to artistic liberty.” 

Jinsol raises an eyebrow. “You’re on a first-name basis with our teacher? That’s lame.”

“She’s my cousin,” Jungeun defends. Her macchiato has gone watery with the melted ice cubes, and she places it on the coffee table, mourning its loss. 

“That is _not_ helping your case.”

“Blah blah. Look, I have,” Jungeun glances at her phone screen, “about an hour left before I have to head home. So can we please move this along?”

Jinsol, to her surprise, just nods in agreement. “Okay, what do you want to know about me?”

What _does_ Jungeun want to know? She conjures a list of things she already knows about Jinsol in her head. 

  * She gets average scores in exams but good grades on her report card
  * She likes humming to songs from Melodrama when they wait for homeroom to start
  * She prefers taking selfies from her right side
  * She never really seems to care about jumping from one boy to another
  * She doesn’t like mango smoothies. Her drink is still full and has been left unattended since the minute she sat down



So that’s what she goes with. “Why’d you get the smoothie if you won’t drink it?” she tilts her chin at the object in question.

Jinsol is still working on the hole of her jeans, distracted and not quite there. Jungeun has to repeat the question for her. 

“Huh?” Jinsol shakes herself out of it. “Sorry, Eunwoo got it for me. That’s why I was late, actually. When I walked in, I thought the barista would make me dump it, but I guess he just didn’t care.”

Oh. So she was with Eunwoo before she came. For some reason, Jungeun’s stomach churns at the idea. She chalks it up to hatred for anything associated with the girl.

“Um, okay. Let’s start with the basics then. Favorite color, song, movie, etcetera?” She opens the notes app on her phone. “Again, this would’ve been much more efficient if we had gone with my plan and texted each other this info.”

“But then we wouldn’t be sharing the sunset together,” Jinsol pouts, basking in the golden rays streaming from the window beside her. She’s striking her model pose, the one that gets the most _hotttt_ 😍🥵🔥 comments on her Instagram. Jungeun always scrolls through them and imagines leaving an 🤢 emoji, but isn’t sure she’ll be able to handle the hate replies. 

“Dude.”

“Fine. Black; Ribs by Lorde, though don’t tell anyone that; and Thoroughbreds, the one with Anya Taylor-Joy, in that order.”

“Alternative,” Jungeun comments as she types that down. “Go on?”

“My favorite subject is P.E., for obvious reasons. Favorite swimming stroke is the butterfly. Favorite book is Kafka on the Shore by Murakami Haruki. Favo –,”

“Wait,” Jungeun interrupts. “Your favorite book is _Kafka on the Shore_? Seriously?”

Jinsol’s eyebrows furrow. “Well, yeah. Why not?”

Jungeun starts ticking off her fingers one by one. “It reads like a psychedelic trip. There’s no sense to the story. Colonel Sanders comes out of fucking nowhere and acts like Gandalf. The plot is so abstract that it abstracted itself in its quest to be as abstract as possible. Also, I hate cats. The idea of a talking one repulses me,” she finishes, leaving her palm open. 

Jinsol crosses her arms and lifts her chin with the same expression she always has when she’s gearing up for an argument. _Finally_ , Jungeun thinks. _We’re back to normal._

“You’re just salty that your brain hasn’t expanded to appreciate magical realism. That stick up your ass is preventing you from having an imagination.” She rests both hands behind her head with a satisfied smirk.

Well, well. Jungeun is always ready to debate the merits of a book. She has to physically restrain herself from rubbing her hands together like a maniac, because _that_ , she admits, is kind of lame to do. “People who rave about purple prose and whimsical imagery in writing are deluding themselves. A book needs to be able to send a message, not paint a pretty picture in someone’s head.”

Jinsol shakes her head, smiling like she knows something Jungeun doesn’t. “A good book doesn’t always need to have a moral story. Sometimes, it just takes you for a ride, and all you have to do is hop along and see where it takes you.”

Jungeun stares at her, dumbfounded. What good is a story if it doesn’t seek to tell you something? What’s the point? Anyone can stick a bunch of sentences together and call it a day, but then, what about it is worth reading?

She’s still thinking of a response when Jinsol’s phone rings with what suspiciously sounds like the opening lines of Nicki Minaj’s verse from Monster. 

Jinsol’s smile fades. “It’s Eunwoo,” she sighs, pocketing her phone. She stands up and slings her bag over the shoulder while Jungeun follows suit, feeling awkward from the interruption. “This conversation has been riveting, but we’ll have to put this on hold. He’s picking me up right now.”

“But you haven’t done me, yet,” Jungeun protests, then rolls her eyes when Jinsol smirks. “I thought we could get this over by today.”

“Unfortunately, and obviously, we can’t.”

“Then…same time and place tomorrow?” 

“Actually, do you want to come to my house instead?” The shock must be incredibly apparent on Jungeun’s face because Jinsol immediately backtracks. “I’m just offering because you probably can’t afford to buy another overpriced drink for more than once a week.”

Jungeun flips her off. “Very funny.”

Jinsol motions for the phone in Jungeun’s hand, who reluctantly hands it over. “I’ll text you the address. Do _not_ leak it to anyone, I swear to god.”

“Why would I –,”

“Okay, bye.”

It’s only after Jinsol has disappeared into the street that Jungeun realizes the smoothie she left behind is still sitting innocently on the table. Crap. Jinsol didn’t even drink it at all, and Jungeun is a firm believer in not throwing out perfectly edible food. 

The clock hanging on the wall behind the counter shows that there’s still another half hour to kill before she has to go home. 

With a sigh, Jungeun grabs the drink with one hand and gets up to order a panini. 

  
  


**jinsouliee ❤️💦 [20:13]:** here’s my address

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [20:13]:** [location sent]

 **Kim Jungeun [20:15]:** ok

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [20:15]:** also did u throw away my smoothie

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [20:15]:** sry i left it i just didn’t want eunwoo to see that it was still full lmao

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [20:15]:** i don’t like mangoes

 **Kim Jungeun [20:16]:** then why didn’t you tell him???

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [20:16]:** idk lol

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [20:16]:** it’s the thought that counts ig

 **Kim Jungeun [20:20]:** it wasn’t that good anyway

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [20:20]:** DID YOU DRINK MY SMOOTHIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [20:20]:** KIM JUNGUEN WTFFFFFF

**jinsouliee ❤️💦 [20:20]: 😱😳🧐🤨🤔**

* * *

**WEDNESDAY**

“Throw that one more time and I’ll snap your wrist,” Jungeun hisses, baring her teeth as intimidatingly as possible at a grinning Chaewon, who just cackles and throws the tennis ball past Jungeun’s head like a baseball pitcher. The whoop that rings out from the desk behind her informs her that Hyejoo caught it. 

“Throw it harder, Chacha,” someone slurs. Sooyoung, the resident stoner, flashes her a thumbs up that’s off by half a meter. 

_One more week, one more week_ , Jungeun repeats in her head like a mantra. Chaewon and Hyejoo continue using her as a net for their game of catch. 

Worst of all, Jinsol isn’t even here for her to redirect her frustration to. The chair to her right is empty, and considering that the only response to Dahyun’s roll call was Sooyoung making a zipping motion and pretending to throw the key away, it’s safe to say that she’s ditching. Again.

_jung jinsol, girl with_

_shock-blonde hair_

_and an attitude to match,_

_embraces the absentia._

_how the fuck is she even allowed to graduate._

A sudden pain spikes the back of her head. “HYEJOO!” 

“Chillax, capitán. It’s all in good fun,” Hyejoo drawls, trying to conceal the ball in her hand with her pencil case. 

Chaewon comes to her aid. “Yeah, you’ve got too many brain cells for your own good. We’re doing you a favor,” she chimes in, her voice deceivingly light and airy for someone borne out of the depths of hell. 

Jungeun wants to throw her desk at those two morons. She decides that the best course of action to take is to move to wherever Hyunjin is sitting before she can actually carry out the threat, which would lead to expulsion and therefore, a rescinded offer from SNU.

The boy sitting in front of Hyunjin scampers away when he sees her marching over. She tips an imaginary hat at him and claims the seat for herself, nodding at her friend and Heejin in greeting. “What’s up?” 

“Discussing Friday night plans,” Hyunjin informs her promptly. “I’m convincing Heejin to let us go full-on Russian oligarch with my mom’s fur coats.”

“And I keep telling her that we’ll get laughed out of the party.”

“But the _fur_ , Heejin, the _fu –_ ,”

Jungeun cuts her off. “Wait, where are you guys going?” 

Hyunjin and Heejin share a look. “Uh, the senior party?” Hyunjin says carefully. In the background, Dahyun shouts at Hyejoo while clutching her forehead, but her voice is drowned out by the noise. 

“Like, Jinsol’s party?” Jungeun questions. Everyone in their graduating class knows about the rager Jinsol and her friends are throwing this Friday as a final send-off before graduation, and though it’s an open invitation, she hadn’t planned on associating with the bottom of the barrel who are bound to show up at the ceremony with a pair of sunglasses and spend the entire assembly groaning about the speakers. She kind of expected Hyunjin to share the sentiment. 

“You’re going?”

“The whole dance crew is going,” Hyunjin says slowly, eyeing her girlfriend. “So yeah, I’m gonna go with Heejin.”

Huh. 

It really isn’t a big of a deal, she supposes. Heejin is popular, and so by extension, Hyunjin is a rung higher on the social ladder, too. It makes sense that Hyunjin would go, and Jungeun can even see why she wasn’t told. She has never hidden her distaste about their less academically-driven friends, so no one, least of all her, expects her presence at a high-school party. 

Still, something akin to regret unexpectedly washes over her. She already feels so detached from everyone else in this class, and now it’s beginning to feel like she’s not as much of a priority to Hyunjin as Hyunjin is to her. 

“Let’s all go!” Heejin says excitedly, not picking up the way Hyunjin’s eyes stray to the floor. “Come on, Jungeun, don’t you want to go to one last party before you’re off to college? I’m sure Jinsol already asked you to come.”

The comment throws Jungeun off. “No? Why would she?”

“Oh. I dunno, I assumed she invited you when you guys met up yesterday.” She pauses. “Then again, I guess it makes much more sense that she didn’t.”

Before Jungeun can answer, she feels something tickling the top of her head and shivers. A small, gray fleck floats down between her eyes, landing on her nose. Ash.

“Greetings, my subjects. I’m just dropping by to deliver some wisdom,” Sooyoung says with a droopy smile, tapping her joint again. She seems to have no qualms about using someone’s head as an ashtray. 

“You,” she points the joint at Jungeun, nearly taking her eyeball out, “should definitely come to the party. Spread your wings and _flah_ , birdie.” She waltzes away with the grace of a child discovering their legs for the first time. 

This shit _seriously_ needs to end. Quickly. 

Suffice to say, she’s in a bad mood when the automated voice on her phone tells her that she has safely arrived and that her destination is on her right. She holds a hand up to block the dying sunlight as she takes in the sight of Jinsol’s house. 

It has the upper-class suburban element of being separated from other houses, standing wide and proud in the middle of a well-kept garden blooming with flowers and neatly trimmed shrubbery. Four tall, white marble columns loom over the front porch, lending it the impression of a rather modern courthouse. 

Jungeun rings the doorbell once and tries not to think about the columns collapsing on her. She’s so distracted by the fish-shaped bush beside the front steps that she doesn’t notice the sound of footsteps growing closer until the door opens, revealing Jinsol in a band T-shirt and Nike booty shorts. 

“Um, hi.”

Jinsol eyes her up and down, leaning against the frame. “You changed.”

“Yeah? I just thought it would be more comfortable.” Jungeun fiddles with the hem of her cardigan. Her eyes are on the precipice of dangerously slipping downwards to Jinsol’s long, tanned legs, and she has to force herself to look straight forward to avoid that can of worms. 

Jinsol pushes herself off and starts walking backward into the house. “I’ve always pictured you in a uniform 24/7. Like how teachers only exist during school hours and disappear right after. You’re kind of blowing my mind right now.” She makes the gunshot motion with her fingers on her temple. 

Jungeun follows her inside, matching Jinsol’s pace. “Can we get this over with? I don’t want this hanging over my head for the entire week,” she says, craning her neck from left to right to take in the interior.

The expensive, minimalist furniture is tastefully arranged. There’s a large crystal chandelier hanging by the entrance and two curved staircases running against the walls in opposite directions. Further in, just past the proudly displayed grand piano, she can see the beginnings of a living room and a kitchen on the far end. 

There aren’t any pictures. No frames capturing moments of childhood, no certificates or prize ribbons hanging on the walls. Nothing stuck on the fridge. No real signs of an inhabitant, really, except for a stray phone charger still plugged into an outlet and some mail strewn over the piano. Jungeun’s shoes squeak against the granite floor, and she almost feels bad for disturbing the stillness suspending over the entire room. 

As Jinsol leads her up one of the staircases, she decides to break the silence anyway and asks, “why weren’t you in school today?”

“I raided my parents’ liquor cabinet last night and woke up this morning face down in the pool,” Jinsol says without turning around. Jungeun nearly trips when she processes the information. “Nah, I’m joking. The DJ I booked suddenly canceled, so I had to race to find a new one since every senior cohort in the district is throwing a party this Friday.” She glances backward and grins. “I felt like that guy in that one Fast and Furious movie who floored his car so hard it caught on fire. Might have broken a record for speed typing.”

“You have a pool?” Jungeun asks, mostly to herself. Also, “that’s every single movie in the franchise.”

They stop at the last door at the end of the hall. “Here’s my room,” Jinsol announces, waltzing in. “Prepare to be dazzled.”

Dazzled is not at all the word Jungeun would use to describe what she’s feeling. More on the other end of the spectrum, in fact. It hits her, right then, that she’s standing in the middle of Jinsol’s room. Jinsol, the girl who won ‘Most Likely to Overthrow the President’ in their yearbook superlatives (for context, her picture is printed right next to Jungeun’s, whose own tag reads, ‘Most Likely to Become President’). She feels like she just made a major oversight.

Despite the intro, Jinsol’s room is perfectly normal, albeit three times as big as Jungeun’s. The only thing out of the ordinary is that the wall behind the bed is covered, absolutely _smothered_ , in polaroids and print-outs. Hundreds of snapshots overlapping with each other, the images too small for Jungeun to make out. It’s a juxtaposing choice of decor considering how plain the rest of the room is, but she doesn’t comment, choosing to deposit her bag on the floor instead as Jinsol throws herself spread-eagle on the bed.

“So, how do you wanna start this?”

Jungeun, after a second of deliberation, sits cross-legged on the floor. “Um, let’s just have you ask me questions this time. Have you thought about what you’re going to do?”

“I’ll probably write a pretend-letter to an imaginary pen-pal about my ‘good friend Jungeun’. It’ll be so expository that Ms. Kim is going to tear her hair out reading it.” Jinsol sits upright on the bed, mirroring Jungeun’s pose. Her crossed legs are practically at eye level.

“Okay,” Jungeun says, staring pointedly at the blue covers. “Hit me with your questions.”

“This is going to be fun!” Jinsol scrolls through her phone and smiles in anticipation. “I vetted a bunch of the best ‘Truth’ questions from my Truth or Drink card deck last night. We’re going to reveal a side of you that no one’s ever seen before, Miss President.”

As Jinsol fires question after question, it becomes clear to both of them that Jungeun is not the target demographic for this game. After Truth number five, Jinsol stops typing down the answers altogether, her expression growing more and more incredulous at Jungeun’s flat responses.

“What’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told a significant other?” “I’ve never had a significant other.”

“Well, what’s the biggest lie you’ve told your parents?” “I told them I got a 100% on a final exam when I really got 98%.”

“What’s the worst date you’ve ever bee – wait, never mind. Describe the craziest way you’ve snuck out of the house to go to a party.” “I’ve never snuck out.”

“Have you ever gotten caught watching porn?” “Jinsol!” 

“Sorry, sorry. Then…have you ever gotten caught watching anime?” “I don’t watch anime.”

“What _do_ you watch then??” “The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s a very good show.”

“Have you ever gotten caught watching _that_??” “…I guess? I don’t hide it.”

“What’s your worst memory from high school?” “That time Sooyoung and I were partners for Chemistry. She misplaced her joint on my lab report and it caught on fire. I had to write the whole thing from the beginning!”

“Alright. What’s your worst non-academic memory from high school?” “Being locked in the public library overnight because the librarian didn’t see me reading in the back when she closed up.” 

“Okay, that one’s pretty interesting.” “It wasn’t that bad, actually. I flicked the lights on and spent the night continuing my book. Madam Lee found me sleeping on the couch the next morning.”

“We’re almost done. What’s your honest opinion about me?”

At that one, Jungeun pauses. All the opinions she’s held for Jinsol in the past have been unpleasant, and admittedly, a majority of it stemmed from her prejudices against the girl’s reputation. But Jinsol has been nothing but nice to her since she arrived, so it wouldn’t hurt to return the favor.

“I guess…you’re quite tall for someone your age.” 

By the end of the list, they’ve both migrated to the floor. Jungeun has her back against the bed while Jinsol curls sideways on the carpet and massages her temples. “Your life needs some serious spicing up, dude.”

“My life is spicy enough,” Jungeun defends, using her toe to poke Jinsol’s back. “And besides, my achievements make up for the lack of embarrassing anecdotes you seem to crave so much.”

“Sure, compensate for it however you want.” Jinsol pats her thigh, then gets up to stretch. Her shirt rides up, exposing a sliver of skin. “God, it’s been like an hour already. I’m gonna get us some snacks. Wait here.” 

While she’s gone, Jungeun uses the opportunity to scoot to the edge of the bed and peer closer at the wall. There are pictures of Jinsol and her friends at a theme park, a few of Jinsol and Sooyoung with their arms slung around each other, the dance team accepting their win at nationals last year, and an odd one of Hyejoo glaring ominously at the camera in the dead of the night. She even spots herself in the class picture they took at the beginning of the year, with the girls sitting neatly in a row while the boys stand at the back. She has a copy of this one too at home. 

Next to that picture, there’s another version of their class photo, one that she didn’t know had been printed out. It was clearly taken as a test shot; almost half of them are blurred in motion, their homeroom teacher has one hand in the air waving at the boys to spread out, and some of the girls are patting their hair down. Still, whoever was manning the camera captured a good moment. They look younger and happier, excited for one hell of a senior year. 

Except for Jungeun, who sits at the edge of the front row, a little further away from the rest. In the picture, her lips are quirked downwards and she has her arms crossed, impatiently waiting for the rest to get organized. You could cut her off from the image and it’d look like a stock photo on a school recruitment flyer. 

Maybe Dahyun had a point. She grew up with these people, yet she doesn’t really know any of them, save for Hyunjin and Heejin. She learned more about Jinsol in two days than the three years they spent together. What else did she miss out on?

Jungeun doesn’t regret it, does she? The evenings going above and beyond for an assignment, the countless hours spent perfecting essays. Invitations she turned down in favor of practicing for a math competition, outings with student council members that she never showed up to. She got into SNU, after all. She made it.

(Still, it would’ve been nice to be able to look back on her high school years with a smile).

She nearly jumps out of her skin when something small and furry brushes against her arm, before realizing that there’s a puppy rubbing its head on her elbow. It must’ve slipped past the door Jinsol left open. Her heart melts at the sight of its thick grey fur and large eyes. 

She picks it up and cradles it in her arms. “You’re so cute,” Jungeun coos, giggling when the puppy paws at her finger. “What’s your name, little buddy?”

“So, you’ve met Nemo.” Jinsol enters, balancing an overflowing bowl of chips on one hand and a stack of flyers and envelopes on the other.

“Like the fish?”

“Yeah, but also like the sea captain. He’s pretty cute, right? I found him mewling by the front garden two weeks ago and brought him in when his mom didn’t show up,” she explains. She hands the bowl over to Jungeun and takes a seat beside her. "Sorry for the wait. I sorted out my mail from the pile downstairs on my way up.” 

Jungeun continues cradling Nemo in one arm like a mother carrying her baby while her other hand grabs a chip from the bowl. Barbecue, her favorite. “No problem.”

“Let’s see,” Jinsol mutters. While she shuffles through her mail, Jungeun scoots closer to peer at them out of curiosity. "Gym membership; gym membership; ooh, 30% off the donut place at the mall; credit card charges; another gym membership offer? Jesus; whoops, that one was meant for my mom." 

She tosses the penultimate envelope at the growing pile in front of them. "Well, this is the last - hey, SNU!"

Sure enough, they're both staring at a familiar blue logo stamped on the envelope seal. 

Jungeun's heart leaps to her throat at the unexpectedness. She bites her tongue as Jinsol tears through the paper and begins reading the letter, lips quietly mouthing the words. Even though she's dying to know what it says, she's still civilized enough not to peek at a private letter without permission. 

"Oh, damn." Jinsol's eyes widen. "They're giving me a scholarship!"

Jungeun can't believe her ears. SNU is releasing scholarship offers? "What?"

"Yeah!" Jinsol grins. The excitement she's exuding is palpable. "It's a combination of athletic and merit. Apparently, a rep attended one of my soccer games last year to scout one of the senior players, but was impressed by my performance as well. Since my CSAT results were well beyond their threshold, they're offering me a spot on the team!" She hugs the letter to her chest. “This is crazy.”

Jungeun leans back, stunned. 

Here’s the thing about growing up with competitiveness as your defining trait: you’re wired to never be satisfied. For her, that means automatically resenting anyone who manages to achieve something significant, like there’s a filter embedded within her that just can’t seem to accept loss, even if it’s in a different playing field. A scholarship? Normally, Jungeun would lash out in disappointment, then spend the entire night staring at the ceiling, wondering what the other person had that she didn’t. Did she lack tenacity? Did she not have enough grit? Was it something she could blame on genes, or the environment, or sheer bad luck?

But as she looks over at the girl practically bouncing in glee, jealousy doesn’t coil in her stomach. Weirdly, nothing does. Sure, she's still not 100% sold on the idea that an admissions officer would look at Jinsol's application and deem it scholarship-worthy, but…Jinsol looks so happy. Jungeun doesn't want to ruin what they have right now. 

“That’s great, Jinsol.” It’s the most sincere thing she’s said in a while. 

“Thanks,” Jinsol answers, chest heaving from all the squealing. The air between them feels thick and sluggish. She must be breathing in Jungeun’s barbecue breath right now, but she doesn’t pull away, and Jungeun commends her for that. 

Nemo gnaws at her thumb. The letter in Jinsol’s hand flutters as she folds and straightens it again and again. Her eyes never leave Jungeun’s. 

“Hey, wanna know something?” Jungeun says, trying to break the tension. Now that they’ve established some kind of camaraderie, she figures that she can poke fun at their petty high school rivalry to lighten the mood. 

“Hmm?”

“Earlier, I lied.”

“About what?”

“Your last question. My honest opinion about you? I couldn’t believe you got into SNU,” Jungeun teases. She throws a chip at Jinsol, whose smile wavers as it hits her shirt and falls to the floor, forgotten. “Seriously, I was even kind of angry about it at first. You can ask Hyunjin; when I saw the posters they put up on Monday – you know, the university ones – I totally flipped,” she chuckles. “I ranted about –,”

“How there’s no way Triple A was smart enough to do that?” 

Jinsol’s voice takes a serrated edge, no longer soft like it was just moments ago. She clenches her jaw and looks away, withdrawing into herself. 

Jungeun’s blood runs cold. “No, of course not. I - I didn’t mean –,” she stammers.

“Don’t you think I know what everyone calls me behind my back?” Jinsol spits. Jungeun watches helplessly as she stands, hands shaking in anger. “Who the fuck cares if I sleep around? That doesn't make me stupid. Why am I not allowed to have fun without people like you judging me?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jungeun says desperately. “This is a misunderstandi –,”

“Misunderstanding? _Misunderstanding?_ ” Jinsol shouts. “Don’t lie to my face and pretend that you’ve never called me that. I know _exactly_ what you think about me, Jungeun!”

Nemo yelps from the noise and pushes off Jungeun’s hand, dashing out the door. The air in the room feels stifling now, like a rubber band on the verge of snapping, stretched beyond its limits. 

The ground beneath her tilts. How did everything go so wrong so fast? 

“I don’t know what I was thinking. How could we ever 'learn to be civil'?” Jinsol laughs, empty and tired. When Jungeun doesn’t answer, still disoriented from the whiplash, her face contorts into a sneer. “You’re jealous that I managed to beat you. Me, the school whore, who’s so beneath the perfect Kim Jungeun that I don't deserve to breathe the same air as her, let alone go to the same college."

Jungeun shoots up, facing her head-on. “Don’t call yourself that.” 

" _You've_ called me that! Don't pretend to care now. Jesus, you're so caught up with licking the faculty's ass that you can't comprehend the idea of having a life beyond school. Well, guess what?" Jinsol waves the letter in her face. "I managed to get _this_ without alienating my friends with how neurotic I am about homework. Pretty sure that makes me better than you."

Annoyance sparks in her chest, and the taunt makes Jungeun reply without thinking. "What's wrong with wanting to do good in my classes? I don't find value in wasting my time getting shitfaced every weekend and screwing boys who'll inevitably dump me within the week."

Immediately, she wants to take it back. Jinsol staggers backward as if Jungeun had slapped her, and judging by the hurt that flashes in her eyes, she practically might as well have. 

Jinsol's face shutters close. The anger melts into something cold and blank, as if the fight had been drained out of her. 

Jungeun swallows the apology resting on the tip of her tongue. The damage has been done. 

"I don't think we should do this anymore. Just leave, Jungeun."

Jinsol isn't even looking at her. She's tapping her fingers quickly against her thigh, impatiently waiting for Jungeun to leave. 

She winces from the irony of what she's about to say. "But the assignment –," 

Jinsol's head snaps to glare at her. 

"Right, okay." She carefully picks up her bag from where it's lying on the floor and leaves the room, quietly shutting the door behind her. 

There's a second where Jungeun just stands there, frozen, wondering if she should turn around and really apologize. It was her fault for teasing Jinsol first. She didn't mean for it to escalate and blow up like that; it was supposed to be friendly banter, the kind that they're used to trading with each other. 

But then she hears a faint sound coming from the other side of the door, and she knows without a doubt that Jinsol is muffling her short, choked sobs with the collar of her shirt. So she unglues her feet from Jinsol's door and makes her way down the staircase, passing Nemo on the last step. She gives him a sad look, but when she bends down to run her hand through his fur one last time, he dodges her touch and scampers up the stairs. In the direction of Jinsol's room. 

"I'm sorry," she whispers. The house swallows up the echo of her apology, and even when Jungeun reaches her own house and stares at the ceiling from her bed, the silence remains burrowed in the space next to her heart, pulsing in tandem with every beat. _I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

* * *

**THURSDAY**

Jungeun arrives at school half an hour earlier than usual, determined not to be intimidated out of her seat by Jinsol, who sits next to her. The effort proved futile, though, because not only did she have to bear witness to Dahyun and Ms. Chou flirting in the parking lot (“I’m allowed to do this outside of school hours,” her cousin had shouted), Jinsol doesn’t even bother to spare her a glance when she comes in two minutes late before striding to the back of the class, occupying Sooyoung’s seat. Jungeun spends the next fifteen minutes trying not to choke on the fumes emanating from Sooyoung’s spindly fingers. 

The situation only grows worse with each of their following classes. Since there’s nothing left to do, the teachers have collectively given up trying to engage their students with productive activities, instead choosing to use the time to grade other assignments with their headphones on at full blast. 

Jungeun doesn’t like this one bit. The anxiety gnawing at her mind is unbearable, and with nothing to distract her from being excruciatingly hyperaware of Jinsol’s presence somewhere in the room, she’s unable to enjoy flipping through the e-book on her phone. Murakami’s writing is hard enough to understand on a normal day; at this state, it’s practically unintelligible, even if she _has_ read it before. 

By the time the lunch bell rings, Jungeun is certain that the pH of the gastric acid in her stomach has shot down to negative levels by how nauseous she feels, to the point that she doesn’t even notice Principal Jeong standing beside her locker until he clears her throat. 

“Jungeun, may I speak with you?”

She startles and nearly bangs her head into the locker door. “Sir? Am I in trouble?”

“That’s absurd,” he guffaws. “You’re one of my best students! So good, in fact, that I’m here to deliver some good news.” He leans in and whispers conspiratorially, “I know this is supposed to be revealed impromptu at the graduation ceremony, but I couldn’t help myself from telling you. You’re the valedictorian!” His excitement dims slightly when Jungeun doesn’t respond, clearly expecting a more victorious reaction. “Your performance has been outstanding, Jungeun, and you’re an ideal representative of this year’s class. I’m sure you’ll deliver a great speech at the ceremony.” 

The assurance is both comforting and unsettling. She’s had fierce competition for the valedictorian title, and it’s relieving to know that she managed to beat Haseul, whose grades have been neck and neck with hers since the beginning of high school, and Vivi, the exchange student who cruised through the past year with the most blasé attitude she’s seen on someone, having been used to the cutthroat system back in Hong Kong. 

The ideal representative part, though? That’s a concern. She’s never gotten along with the majority of her classmates, and save for the time Sooyoung nearly burnt off her hair in Chemistry, causing Yerim to panic and pull the fire alarm before realizing that Jungeun was completely fine, she doesn’t have a single standout memory with them. So now, not only does she still have to write the poem about Jinsol, she somehow has to bullshit her way in front of everyone and their mother in two days. Her plate is looking like the cucumber tower in that one viral Pizza Hut salad bar picture. 

Jungeun recounts all this to Hyunjin at their lunch table, who nods along as she munches on a soggy French fry.

“Damn, that’s kinda tough. But who cares about the speech, though? Vice Principal Lee must’ve been batshit insane to hold the ceremony on the freaking soccer field at one in the afternoon. Honestly, if I weren’t as broke as I am, I would actually pay you to keep it short. I can already feel my robes fusing with my skin.” Hyunjin shudders. 

Jungeun pokes around at her broccoli and cheese casserole before sliding it over. “It just feels shitty to have to fake it during what’s supposed to be a milestone, you know? It didn’t cross my mind that I’d have to speak for people I’ve never shared a positive interaction with.”

“So don’t fake it,” Hyunjin suggests. She motions towards the other end of the cafeteria, where the dance team usually congregates. When Jungeun looks over, a flash of blonde hair whips through the air, as if Jinsol had quickly turned her head just a second ago. “You’re not out of chances.”

“A party is not the solution, Hyun. Besides, I think I’m banned from Jinsol’s house,” Jungeun mutters under her breath. 

“Why?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell. Me,” Hyunjin prods. “Or I’ll drag you to their table myself.”

Her expression morphs from curious to downright murderous when Jungeun reluctantly tells her what went down yesterday evening, and the disappointment that rolls off her in waves settles deep in the pit overtaking Jungeun’s stomach. “Fuck, did you seriously slut-shame her?” 

“I didn’t mean to,” Jungeun admits guiltily. “I just wanted to make my point about wasting time, but I definitely crossed a line back there. I fucked up so bad, Hyun.”

“You and your horrible sense of social cues.” Hyunjin rolls her eyes. “No shit she’s going to hate being called stupid. I get that you’re jealous, but that was still a gargantuanly dumb move on your part.”

“That’s the thing.” Jungeun leans in, lowering her voice. “I don’t think I am?”

“You don’t think you were dumb as hell?”

“Not that, asshole. I don’t think I was jealous when I saw her get the scholarship. It was like…like that time you played ring toss with an onion ring and the pen in Jo Haseul’s front pocket while shouting ‘Kobe!’ to woo Heejin.” 

Hyunjin pretends to think. “Questionable but also highkey impressive?”

“Exactly,” Jungeun affirms. She sneaks another glance at the other table. Jinsol is nodding along to whatever Sooyoung is saying, but she looks distracted, snapping one of her bracelets on her wrist. She has her school blouse tucked into her skirt today, the band tight against her waist. Jungeun doesn’t know why her brain noticed that. “Like, _really? This is the girl who threw hands with Mr. Kim in third-period History last year_. But also like, _yeah, I guess she’s pretty smart for someone as busy as she is. And her extracurriculars are great. She has an okay personality, which might’ve translated well to her essays. Maybe –_ ,”

“Dude.”

“Sorry.”

Jungeun’s leg is bouncing like crazy. She thinks it mirrors the incessant stutter in her chest. There’s something out of reach here, something just a fraction away from the tips of her fingers. A realization begins to wisp and curl in her mind, never quite solidifying enough for her to latch on to. 

Hyunjin regards her carefully, casserole completely abandoned. “Jungeun, I mean this in the most non-offensive possible way,” she says slowly. “But do you think you might not hate Jinsol as much as you claim to do?”

“Excuse me?” Jungeun retorts.

“Let’s face it: you’ve been shoving years of raging hormones down the depths of your calculator mind. That stress has to go somewhere, does it not? My theory is that you’ve been unknowingly channeling pent-up sexual frustration by taking it out on someone you consider an equal.” 

A beat passes. “You’re crazy,” Jungeun concludes. 

“More importantly,” Hyunjin continues, clearly enjoying the moment, “I think we both know that you have a grudging respect for her, even if you won’t admit it. She’s as accomplished as you are, just in a different field. You need to acknowledge that instead of letting the scantron that lives in your brain make black-and-white judgments.”

This part, at least, Jungeun can begrudgingly admit to being true. 

She takes a deep breath. “You’re right. I’ve been unfairly shitty to her. I’m going to apologize.” The words pump adrenaline into her veins, and she buzzes with anxiety and anticipation, the bounce in her leg having coursed to the rest of her limbs. “Yeah, I’ll pull her aside right before we enter our next class. We’ll talk it out like the mature people we are, make up, and hopefully everything will be cleared up before Saturday.”

Hyunjin sits up and crosses her arms, a proud smile on her face. “Atta girl.”

The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch as the crowd starts flowing out the cafeteria. Jungeun rises from her seat, eyes locked on the blonde girl on the other end of the room. It’s time to put on her big-girl pants, intercept Jinsol in the hallway, and say her apology. Pants, intercept, apologize. She can do this. 

**Kim Jungeun [21.39]:** hey, uh

 **Kim Jungeun [21.39]:** how did your dj search go?

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [21:46]:** r u srsly asking me that

 **Kim Jungeun [21.48]:** shit, no

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [21:48]:** uh huh

 **Kim Jungeun [21.48]:** look, jinsol, i’m really sorry

 **Kim Jungeun [21.49]:** it was incredibly insensitive of me to bring up the poster thing. i wasn’t trying to shit on your moment, which i know sounds pretty dubious coming from me, but i promise i just said it out of the blue to tease you. not to invalidate your achievement

 **Kim Jungeun [21.50]:** it was childish, i know that. i reverted back to our old dynamic without considering the context of the situation

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [21.50]:** y do u sound so formal

 **Kim Jungeun [21.50]:** …do you not want me to?

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [21.51]:** no its ok go on

 **Kim Jungeun [21.51]:** um

 **Kim Jungeun [21.51]:** most of all, i’m sorry for calling you triple a behind your back. there’s really no excuse for this. i understand if you don’t want to forgive me, i just wanted to apologize to you directly for all the times i did

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [21.52]:** tbh i also called u a neurotic bitch with the personality of eraser dust behind ur back to all my friends, sooo

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [21.52]:** we’re even ig

 **Kim Jungeun [21.52]:** what

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [21.53]:** do u want me to rescind my forgiveness

 **Kim Jungeun [21.53]:** no!

 **Kim Jungeun [21.52]:** also, sorry for doing this over text. i wanted to do this in person earlier, but i chickened out

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [21.53]:** u can still do it f2f

 **Kim Jungeun [21.53]:** oh, alright. i’ll come to you tomorrow and apologize during homeroom 

**jinsouliee ❤️💦 [21.53]:** not what i meant

 **jinsouliee ❤️💦 [21.53]:** dont u dare decline ok

 **Kim Jungeun [21.53]:** ???

Jungeun nearly drops the phone on her face when her screen displays an incoming call. Her heart starts to race. Crap. She must look like a gremlin in pajamas right now. She throws her blanket aside and rushes to turn the light on.

If possible, the ringtone seems to have grown even louder, relentless in its quest to fuel Jungeun’s panic. Why is Jinsol calling? Is she angry? Her texts seemed pretty neutral, but there’s a lot they have yet to talk about. 

Her thumb hovers over the green button. Screw it. She swipes it to the left and holds the phone an acceptable distance away from her face. 

“ _Why are you wearing a Hello Kitty shirt?_ ” Jinsol’s voice rings from the speaker. On the screen, the night sky contrasts the yellow of her hair, honeyed by the glow of the street lamps she passes under. “ _Wait, are you in your room? Is that an owl wallpaper behind you?_ ”

“They’re my pajamas, and yes, I’m in my room. The wallpaper is cute, don’t knock it,” Jungeun defends. “Why are you outside? It’s pretty late.”

Jinsol raises an eyebrow. “ _It’s ten._ ”

“Exactly? I’m about to go to bed.” It’s only been a minute, but her right arm is already starting to ache. Jungeun leans on a pillow and props her phone on one knee, idly taking note of the bright garish light Jinsol steps into and the sound of bus doors swiveling close. 

“Y _ou can’t be serious. How are you going to stay up late enough for my party? It_ starts _at ten, you know?_ ”

“Kinda assumed I was uninvited,” Jungeun says nervously. 

“ _Nah, it’s an open invite. And I want you to come_.” 

Jungeun doesn’t know how to respond to that statement. It makes her feel even worse that Jinsol is being so nonchalant and nice about everything when she’s the one who messed up. Not for the first time, she silently wonders how their preceding relationship became so hostile.

“I really am sorry about yesterday,” she starts, ready to ramble again, but Jinsol interrupts her. 

“ _It’s okay. We both got worked up and said awful shit_.” The camera pans away for a moment, showing a flash of the bus ceiling before going back to Jinsol, her mouth set in a serious line. “ _I also want to apologize. I shouldn’t have snapped. Being called Triple A doesn’t really bother me – you know, reclaim the title and all that. The past week has just been super tiring, and I guess I was looking for an excuse for an emotional release._ ”

“Oh.” Before she can stop herself, Jungeun adds, “do you want to talk about it?”. A decision she cringes at immediately, because FaceTiming for the first time does not automatically equal an invitation to one’s private life. 

Thankfully, Jinsol waves her off. “ _Nah, just some stuff with Eunwoo. Nothing particularly important. And to answer your question, I did find a new DJ. Yeojin and her arsenal of Soundcloud tracks are locked and loaded_.”

“…for real?”

“ _Yup_.” Jinsol pops the ‘p’. “ _I’m paying her with free wine coolers for her and her sophomore friends. She said the clout was payment enough. Speaking of tomorrow! I’m skipping again, so don’t miss me too much_.”

“What? Why?” Jungeun questions, disappointment mildly sinking in. “It’s literally our last day, and plus, you still have to turn in the assignment to Ms. Kim.”

“ _The dance crew and I have our own senior rituals. I’ll turn it in on Saturday before the ceremony_.” Somewhere in the background, an automated voice announces the next stop. Jinsol looks out the window and stands, the screen shaking with her movement. “ _This is where I get off. Remember_ ,” she jabs a finger at the camera, “ _I’m expecting you at my house tomorrow, or else you can kiss that forgiveness goodbye and grovel at my feet during graduation. I refuse to be associated with eraser dust in SNU, you hear me? Okay, bye, gotta go!_ ”

Jungeun is left blinking at a darker reflection of herself. It takes a full-blown yawn for her to abruptly lower her arm and glance at the time. 10:17 PM.

Jinsol did say that she’ll have to stay up late tomorrow. All the more reason to go to bed as early as possible, is it not? She reinforces this over and over in the darkness until she eventually succumbs to sleep, the familiar exhaustion dragging her under. 

Blonde hair, tanned legs. A letter. Colonel Sanders and a talking cat. Two silhouettes laughing over bottles of soju. 

Tonight, she dreams. 

* * *

**FRIDAY**

The final day of school always feels surreal, especially when you’re graduating. Everyone’s a little nicer to each other, the walls appear less dirty than they normally are, and the lump of mystery meatloaf served as the day’s special doesn’t taste as vomit-inducing as it looks. The shared understanding of _the end_ is both bittersweet and nostalgic, the shrill ringing of the bell echoing throughout the hallways for the last time serving as the mark of a chapter closing. 

“I think I’m actually going to miss this place,” Jungeun murmurs, soaking everything in. “Not necessarily you, but just the place in general.”

Dahyun stops shoving papers down her briefcase to roll her eyes. “Trust me, you’ll get over it quickly. Students say the same shit each year and then disappear into thin air two months later. Like, is it that hard to come visit?”

“I’ll come visit when you retire.” Jungeun sticks her tongue out and hops down from the teacher’s desk. Hyunjin and Heejin are probably already waiting for her in the parking lot, but she stalls anyway, taking one last look at the empty classroom she spent the last three years of her life in. 

“You don’t need to wait that long. We have a family brunch next weekend,” Dahyun reminds her. She pauses from flipping through the last stack of papers and asks, “hey, you didn’t submit the assignment I gave you? I know it’s only symbolic and all, but it’s not like you to skip out of schoolwork. Just give me whatever you have.”

Jungeun shakes her head. “No, I haven’t gotten it down yet.” Her cheeks redden in embarrassment at the following words. “I…I want this to be good.” Her dignity nearly implodes on itself when Dahyun’s jaw drops in shock. Before she can react, her cousin yanks her forward to ruffle her hair, her other arm keeping Jungeun in a choking headlock. 

“Good job, kiddo,” Dahyun grins over the protests. “I’m proud of you.” 

“Fuck you,” Jungeun splutters. She gives Dahyun the middle finger as she stumbles out the class, a violation of school policy that even Principal Jeong wouldn’t be able to defend her from, but all Dahyun does is call out, “I love you too,” as Jungeun hurries away to where her friends are waiting. 

Hyunjin drives them to her house, and before they know it, five hours of Netflix-marathoning on the couch have passed, leaving them an hour to rush and get appropriately dressed. A quarter of that time was spent dissuading Hyunjin to ditch her mom’s ridiculous winter coats, a feat only won by Heejin distracting her girlfriend with a make-out session while Jungeun locks herself in the bathroom, gripping the mascara wand with a shaky hand. 

Jungeun sticks her head out of the open car window, feeling the wind tousling her hair as the muffled cacophony of noises emanating from a familiar house fills the street. Her stomach erupts with nervous butterflies. What lies beyond the Greek columns with sloppy CLASS OF 2020 posters stuck on them is new territory, one that she didn’t have enough time to plan ahead for. 

Her strategy is simple: 

  * Stick with Hyunjin and Heejin at all times
  * Limit herself to one wine cooler stolen from Yeojin’s stash
  * Avoid dirtying up her clothes; dry cleaning is expensive
  * Don’t do anything she’ll come to regret, including but not limited to receiving a face tat that cannot be rubbed off before 1 PM tomorrow, getting into a fistfight with the sophomores, and waking up in a pool of vomit



She tugs on the hem of her skirt one last time as the three of them walk into the house. The party is clearly in full swing, despite it only being fifteen minutes past 10. The large living room is bathed in colorful flashing lights that strobe in tandem with the mumble rap track pulsing from the speakers callously placed on top of the piano. Already, Jungeun starts to swelter in her sweater while she pushes against the throng of dancing people, relying on the tug of Hyunjin’s hand to lead her somewhere safe. Jinsol is nowhere to be seen. She doesn’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved. 

They end up in the kitchen, where the lighting is thankfully consistent and there’s less people milling around. Heejin opens the fridge with a practiced swoop and retrieves several bottles of beer, popping one open immediately and pouring it into a plastic cup. 

“Can I have a wine cooler instead?” Jungeun shouts over the music. 

A guy leaning on the island beside her scoffs. “What is this, a middle school bash?”

“Shut up,” Hyunjin snaps at him, before turning back to Heejin. “But seriously though. Go easy on her.”

Heejin hums, analyzing the contents of the fridge. “There’s a couple of juice boxes here. You like orange, don’t you, Jungie?”

Jungeun’s cheeks burn. Her pride has been shot. She’ll blame it on the presumed trace amounts of drugs in the air if she has to, but for now, she snatches the open cup from Heejin’s hand and downs it in one gulp. 

There. Her first alcoholic drink sans parental supervision in eighteen years. It has a horrible aftertaste of wet bread and the gurgling slosh of nerves in her stomach only amplifies as the liquid slides down her throat, but the look on everyone’s face is definitely worth it.

Jungeun raises the empty cup. “IT’S PAST MY BEDTIME,” she yells. Warm gas starts to float from her stomach to her brain, muddying her vision. She feels like a balloon; a lanky, yeasty balloon. 

Heejin and Hyunjin look at each other, and then back at her. “IT’S PAST HER BEDTIME!”

They clink cups, and then it’s hell from there. 

The air around her starts to warp as the alcohol kicks in. Her entire face feels like it’s on fire. She must’ve underestimated how much of a lightweight she is because soon enough, Hyunjin has a twin and the edges of Heejin’s corporeal form start blurring into the wall as she pours Jungeun more beer.

“Oh god.” She grips someone’s arm for balance. The guy from earlier makes a strained sound from the back of his throat. Jungeun wants to apologize, but she’s afraid that opening her mouth will cause a gas leak. 

The song playing in the background stops and then returns two seconds later, blasting a Taylor Swift remix on a trap beat. They make their way to the living room, where a crowd has gathered to witness a commotion going on in the center. It’s so packed that she barely understands what’s going on until someone moves from her line of vision, revealing some guy she vaguely recognizes from the baseball team doing robot motions with his arms, jerking his body left and right like a puppet on a string. He laughs good-naturedly when the crowd boos him and rejoins the group of boys whooping behind him, whistling when someone peels themselves from the crowd and moves forward. Jungeun can’t see what’s happening from her side, but the bodies around her start jumping up and down and she nearly gets elbowed in the face. The crowd starts hyping the person up even louder than before, nearly drowning out the song. 

“It’s a dance-off,” Hyunjin shouts at her. 

“What?” Jungeun shouts back.

Hyunjin just yanks her towards her side in response. Jungeun gets a mouthful of her friend’s hair and is about to complain when she realizes that she has a clear view of who the person is.

It’s Jinsol, fitted in a glittery spaghetti-strap tank top and low rise denim shorts. She dances the way water glides over rocks, silky and smooth, with energy barely concealed under surface tension. Her hips snap to the beat of the music as she continues freestyling to Yeojin's mix. The crowd grows even crazier as they chant her name over and over; an audience captivated by the performer. 

Jungeun’s mouth goes dry. The edges of her fingertips start tingling, warping the plastic cup in her grip. For a single, imperceptible moment, Jinsol's head turns to her left, gaze piercing past the mass of bodies between them. Jungeun meets her eyes, shining bright underneath the colorful lights. Soft and sultry under the smoky make-up, leagues away from what Jungeun last remembers them to be. The world boils down to the two of them, breathless and magnetic. 

Jinsol winks, and the moment is over. She jars into reality when a body knocks into her shoulder, nearly tipping the beer over the edge. 

"Sorry, sweetie." Jackson leers, his sour breath wafting all over her face. He gives Jungeun another once-over and disappears into the mass of bodies, leaving her standing there, confused and creeped out. 

Not even two seconds later, Chaewon bursts out of nowhere and flips the cup out of her hand. The entirety of its ìnsides lands on her sweater and Jungeun can only gape as the lukewarm beer soaks into her bra. 

"I SAW JACKSON PUT SOMETHING IN THERE," Chaewon shrieks. The sudden smell of weed on her is unmistakable. "I'LL KILL HIM FOR YOU."

Jungeun looks down into her empty cup. At the very bottom is a dead fly lying on its back. 

"Thanks, Chaewon," she says, oddly touched by the gesture. The blonde throws up gang signs and wobbles away. 

Her drink abandoned, Jungeun extracts herself from the group to take a breather. Under a better light, the brown stain glares prominently on her pink sweater. Crap. The bill is going to sting. She pinches the fabric away from her, shuddering as it unclings from her chest.

Hyunjin and Heejin are nowhere to be seen. Her best guess: they're making out in one of the many rooms in this freakishly large house. Now that her body is getting used to the alcohol, she's uncomfortably aware of how out of hand the situation has gotten. 

Would it be lame to leave right now? The nearest bus stop is only a block away, and there's a portable can of pepper spray in her purse. She can go home, catch up on the sleep she's losing, and wake up rested for tomorrow, the most important day of this entire academic year.

But she hasn't greeted the host yet. It would be rude to leave without saying hi. 

This single fact stalls her feet from walking out the door. It's also enough time, apparently, for Sooyoung to appear out of the kitchen and shove a tray of baked goods under her nose. “Try.”

“Oh, hi Sooyoung.”

“Try. One.”

Her tone – and crazed expression – suggests no arguments, so Jungeun gingerly picks a slice of what she thinks is a carrot cake. It’s a touch too sweet and clogs her throat, but she finishes it anyway. Her stomach is in dire need of something reasonable. 

“Good?”

“Maybe scale back on the sugar,” Jungeun advises, licking the crumbs off her fingers. 

Sooyoung nods stiffly. “Noted.”

“Why are you baking in the middle of a party, anyway? Why not –.” The blood drains from Jungeun’s face, leaving her feeling lightheaded. “Please don’t tell me they were laced with weed,” she whispers. 

“And get jailed when someone snitches on me? Please,” Sooyoung scoffs. “I only share with my inner circle. No way I’m wasting it on you peasants.” 

“Does your inner circle include Chaewon?” Jungeun asks dryly. 

“Yes, but for legal purposes, I’m saying no. Anyway, I need to check on my brownies before they burn. Goodbye.”

Jungeun has half a mind to follow her into the kitchen because she has nothing better to do, but turns on her heel when she hears Sooyoung yell, “FUCK,” and what sounds like twenty pots and pans crashing to the floor. There’s a sliding door nearby that leads to the open patio and Jungeun steps out to savor the cold, fresh air. 

It’s much quieter out here. She takes a seat on an empty bench and shivers when the wind blows on the wet spot on her sweater. There are couples making out against the wall and trees, and she even spots Yerim’s purple hair glowing against the dark grass as she lies beside Hyejoo, who’s clad in all black like a burglar. The tranquility, coupled by the faint opening riff of Mr. Brightside coming from the house, lends an underwater feel to where she is, hazy and muffled.

Tonight has surprisingly not sucked. Sure, it doesn’t beat the thrill of MUN conference afterparties or debate post-tournament celebrations, and there’s the start of a stomach ache churning from everything she’s consumed, but…it wouldn’t have hurt to come once or twice with Hyunjin to blow off steam during peak exam season. There’s an appeal to togetherness, she supposes; to knowing that you’re not drifting alone. 

Maybe she should go back in?

“Mind if I join you?” 

Jungeun startles. Someone takes a seat next to her on the bench. He looks slightly too old to be a high school student and doesn’t dress like one either, looking preppy in a gray cashmere sweater over a dress shirt. 

“Hi,” she says, eyeing him warily. 

The guy flashes her a dimpled smile. “Are you a friend of Jinsol’s?”

“I’m her classmate.”

“Oh, so you’re a senior?”

It’s a pretty standard question for a high school party interaction, and his tone is perfectly pleasant, but something in her itches to get away. Suddenly, it’s _too_ quiet, too dark under the shadow of the patio roof blocking the lights. 

Her answer is clipped. “Yes.”

Instead of taking the hint, the guy’s grin widens and he shifts closer to her, casually resting an arm on the table behind them. The scent of his cologne pierces her nose. 

“Looking for some fun before you graduate, huh? I know what that’s like.” He leans in even further and in a low voice, he says, “I fell asleep during my graduation because I was _that_ spent from the entire night, if you know what I mean. Half the girl in my class couldn’t walk straight across the stage, it was hila –,”

Jungeun abruptly stands up. “I think I hear my friend calling me. I’m going back inside.”

“Oh, come on. We were just talking.” He juts his lower lip in a pout and rises to meet her. She takes a step back. “Weren’t you looking to have fun?” 

“No, I –,”

His hand shoots out to grab her arm. Before she can yank it away, something dark flashes before her eyes, accompanied by a sound not unlike that of a watermelon getting thwacked with a baseball bat. She first thinks that it’s the pitiful montage of her life, until a fist retracts and she realizes that the dark thing was Hyejoo’s sleeve and the loud sound was the guy’s head slamming on the table from the force of the punch. 

“You bitch,” he screams, a hand flying up to cup his nose. Blood trickles down between his fingers. The people who were already out on the patio start gathering around them, curious about the commotion. 

“If I see your busted nose near another girl again, I’ll rip your head off,” Hyejoo threatens, before turning to Jungeun and raising an eyebrow. “You okay?”

Her throat is too tight to give an answer. The edges of her nails start digging into her palm as she instructs herself to breathe. In, out. In, out. In, in, in. Out. 

The guy pushes himself up and bares his teeth, stained red. “You think I’m going to let a little fucking dyke like you get away with this? I have no qualms with punching a girl.”

Hyejoo’s eyes narrow. “I’d like to see you try.”

He lunges wildly at her and nearly topples over when Hyejoo dodges the hit, immediately landing a kick on his ribs with her steel-toe boot. Jungeun gasps at the crunching sound. Not far away from her, Yerim punches the air and cheers. “Woo! Go Hyejoo!”

For all his bravado, he ends up spasming on the floor anticlimactically, surrounded by a bunch of drunk people giving him the stink eye. Hyejoo takes a threatening step forward, the ominous sound of her boot stomping the floor causing him to cower even further, and he ends up scrambling away from the scene, one hand pathetically clutching his busted nose. 

Once he’s gone, all eyes turn on Jungeun. Her hands start to shake. Everything went by so fast and bile is rising up her throat and she didn’t mean for him to get hurt and she wants to cry from how relieved she is that Hyejoo was there and she hates the piercing attention and – she’s hyperventilating. 

Someone taps her over the shoulder. “Seriously, Jungeun. Are you okay?” Yerim asks, brows furrowed in concern. 

“I - I have to go,” Jungeun forces out. 

The music is too loud, the air too short in her lungs. The living room spins under her feet as she bumps into people after people after people, desperate to escape the noise. Hot tears spring to her eyes. Fuck this. Tonight sucked. She should’ve stayed home. Shouldn’t have drunk, shouldn’t have worn this sweater, shouldn’t have gone outside. Why did she let Hyunjin drag her here? What was she hoping to gain?

That’s it. She’s leaving. The last bus departs in twenty minutes, which is enough time for her to borrow a shirt from Jinsol’s room and change. She has to squeeze between fearless idiots making out in the middle of the stairs like it’s not a hotspot for gravity-related injuries, but the hallway leading to Jinsol’s room is thankfully less cramped.

She swings the door open and nearly receives a heart attack. 

The tangled mess of blankets and skin scramble to cover themselves in panic. The girl on top nearly falls off the bed when she tries to snatch a random shirt from the floor to cover herself. A mess of disheveled dark hair covers half of her face, but Jungeun recognizes her as Jisoo, one of the girls in Jinsol’s dance team. And the guy beneath her…

She inhales sharply. “What the fuck?”

Eunwoo’s eyes bulge in terror. “It’s not what it looks like.” 

“What is it _supposed_ to look like?!”

Jungeun is already cold, tired, and dealing with an upset stomach, and as she watches Eunwoo and Jisoo trade panicked looks as they struggle to come up with an explanation, a new emotion materializes within her: anger. 

She stomps closer to the bed and jabs a finger at his face. “Tell me you’re not actually cheating on Jinsol _in her room_ , you dick. And you,” Jisoo flinches at her tone, “aren’t you supposed to be her friend? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Why do you care?” Jisoo defends hotly. “I know for a fact that you don’t like Jinsol, so just shut up and don’t tell her.”

The. 

Fucking. 

Audacity. 

“Listen, Jungyoon. Just - just let me explain this to her, okay? Eunwoo attempts a smile, although it quickly fades once he notices Jungeun’s fuming expression. 

She just…she just can’t _believe_ that they have the nerve to go behind Jinsol’s back like that. In her own house, no less; at a party she painstakingly organized so that everyone in their graduating class gets to enjoy themselves before tomorrow. “Jinsol deserves better than the both of you,” Jungeun spits. 

“And she deserves you?” Jisoo sneers. “Face it, she’ll never believe you over us. So just…go do some math or something and leave us alone.”

The statement stops her in her tracks. Here she is, confronting Jinsol’s boyfriend and one of her closest friends, while her own relationship with Jinsol is precarious at best, non-existent at worst. There’s no telling whether she’ll believe Jungeun or laugh at her face at the accusation. Jungeun wants to believe it’s the former, but her confidence crumbles nonetheless at Jisoo’s vindicated smirk. 

It’s a sobering reality, one she doesn’t have the energy to face right now. 

Guess she’ll have to go home in this shirt after all. 

She bumps into someone going down the stairs and freezes when a pair of hands grab her forearms. “Hey, where did you disappear to?” Jinsol shouts, hair mussed from the dancing, neck glistening with sweat. Her lipstick has softened into pink, just barely a shadow on her lips. Jungeun’s addled brain registers the question a beat too late.

“Oh, um.” Crap. What does she answer? 

An idea pops into her head. “I was looking for Nemo!” she laughs nervously. “How’s that little guy doing? Ha ha.”

Jinsol brightens. “I left him in my room so he wouldn’t be scared of the noise. Come on, I’m sure he missed you, too.”

“No!” Several heads turn at the exclamation. “I mean, what if…we talked about Nemo…here.” Jungeun slides down against the wall, right there on the top steps. “I’m sure we can, uh, appreciate the…density of his fur…through casual conversation on these stairs.”

“Huh?”

Jungeun squeezes her eyes shut. The nausea has gone sour, a hot rod scraping at the internal lining of her stomach. She's only ever felt this once before in her life, and it was excruciating enough that she vowed never to feel it again. 

Too late, apparently. 

Jinsol looks at her worriedly. "Why is your face green?"

She hurls. At Jinsol's sneakers, and at the people standing below them, clearly not expecting the rain of vomit descending from above like the wrath of God.

"Yo, what the hell??" 

Another wet washcloth presses against her forehead. Jungeun closes her eyes once the droplets start running down her eyelids, basking in the relief it draws from her burning face. 

"You good?"

The first thing she sees is a pair of bare ankles, and her gaze flits upwards for what seems like miles until it reaches Jinsol's concerned frown as she runs another washcloth under the tap. Either the bathroom lights are dimmer or Jungeun' vision is still temporarily impaired, because there's a new haze framing the lines of Jinsol's figure. Fuzzier, a touch more subdued. Like Jungeun is seeing her in a new light.

"I'm getting the hang of it."

Jinsol sits crossed-legged beside her, her head nearly bumping into the toilet bowl. “You ate Sooyoung’s banana bread, didn’t you?”

“That was _banana bread_? I thought it was carrot cake!”

“ _Carrot cake_? Have you never seen banana bread before?

“No?? Why would I ever go looking for one?”

Jinsol throws her hands in the air exasperatedly. “The point is, you're not allergic to bananas, you're intolerant. There's a difference. That's why you threw up instead of developing a reaction along the lines of a rash."

“...why is this something you know?” Jungeun asks. With her back against the intersection of the door jamb and the hard, cold wall, there’s really nowhere to look except straight forward, right at the toilet. Or what’s next to it. 

Jinsol tosses her the washcloth she’s holding. “My parents are doctors. I’m going to be studying pre-med in SNU.”

Huh. “Really? Don’t you struggle with biology the most?” 

“That and chemistry.” 

“Then…why go pre-med?” Jungeun inquires. Not that she noticed, but from all the classes they’ve shared, Jinsol seems to excel in humanities the most. Jungeun spent the entirety of eleventh grade seething as she glared at the back of Jinsol’s head during art class. 

The blonde shrugs. “My parents. A family of doctors, the opportunity to brag to our relatives, blah blah. It’s a whole thing. I wanted to pursue music, but…yeah. What about you?”

“Social welfare, and then a law track,” she answers immediately. “I want to advocate for the underprivileged. The system lacks transparency and it’s hurting those who aren’t part of the 1%. Some parts are just straight-up archaic and directly perpetuate sexism, which is why I want to get involved.”

“So what you’re saying is that you, Kim Jungeun, are going to single-handedly bring forth reformation upon the entire country?”

“Yep.”

“Dope.” Jinsol’s head bobs up and down. “You’ll be the lawyer tearing down corporate assholes and I’ll be the physician turning them away when they’re lying flat on a gurney after collapsing out of the shock of having their net worth drop down to single digits.” 

Jungeun giggles. It bounces across the walls of their little bubble until they’re both laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Never in a million years would she expect to end up here, cooped up in a small bathroom with Jung Jinsol, sharing potential plans for a shared future. The crazy thing is, there’s nowhere she’d rather be right now. 

Jinsol nudges her with a knee. “So…turns out you’re not the first person to ruin a piece of my clothing tonight,” she says conversationally. “I’ll forgive you for the shoes. Can’t say the same for Jackson, though.”

“What did he do?”

“Spilled half a bottle of Cabernet on me. I’ll never be able to wear this top again without looking like a grape,” she snorts. “I was on my way to change when I bumped into you.”

Jungeun’s smile fades. The memory of what she saw earlier comes rushing back, and she hears Jisoo’s words replay in her head: _she’ll never believe you over us_. 

She’s afraid of what it means if it’s true. She’s also afraid of what it means if it isn’t. 

To her credit, Jinsol notices the change and raises an eyebrow to ask, “what?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s clearly not nothing. You’re dying to say something.”

“I’m not.”

“What was that about transparency again?” Jinsol points out. 

Jungeun hesitates at first, but slowly acquiesces when it’s clear that Jinsol isn’t going to let this go. She just hopes it won’t hurt her too much. “Look, there’s something you need to know.” 

Jinsol tilts her head, prompting her to continue. 

“It’s kind of a long story. So I was with Hyunjin earlier and we were watching the dance-off until Jackson, like, body checked me and Chaewon apparently thought he slipped something into my drink so she took it upon herself to knock it out of my hand and my sweater got soaked because of it, then there was this weird guy who Hyejoo punched and at that point I was DONE with the night so I went to your room to borrow a shirt or something but when I opened the door IsawEunwooandJisootogether and I freaked out a bit and left and threw up on you,” Jungeun finishes in one breath.

“Huh,” is all Jinsol says. She doesn’t move a single muscle. In fact, Jungeun almost second-guesses herself whether she said the entire thing out loud judging by the lack of reaction. Jinsol is just…pensively staring right back at her. 

“Makes sense.”

“ _Makes sense?_ ” Jungeun parrots incredulously. “Your boyfriend and your teammate were hooking up _on your bed_. I thought you’d be barging in with guns blazing right now.”

Jinsol pulls her knees to her chest. It’s the smallest Jungeun has ever seen her, and it bothers her more than it should. “I guess I already knew. It’s hard to balance school and the shit ton of extracurriculars I do, plus there’s my parents’ expectations stressing me out on top of everything…I’m not surprised he got impatient of waiting.” 

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Jungeun says softly. 

“It is. That’s what Myungjun told me, and Yeonjun, and Jaehyun, and – you get the point.” Jinsol laughs, and it’s wet and painful to hear. “I’m just so _busy_ all the time. I’m not friends with the people in soccer and volleyball, and while I do hang out with the dance girls a lot, I’m not actually close with any of them. Sooyoung’s the only one I can really call my best friend – and she’s great! she gets me more than anyone else – but she’s usually more preoccupied with getting high than planning choreo with me. I have soccer training three times a week and volleyball training in-between, plus modeling on weekends. Sometimes, I get so tired that I don’t have the energy to open my eyes in the morning, so I end up ditching school. I’m sure you’ve noticed that.” The corners of her lips turn up half-heartedly. Jungeun’s heart breaks somewhere between the second and third names. 

“Jinsol, I - I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay. It just gets lonely, y’know? So I try to have some fun when I can, to distract myself from that loneliness. And it worked, but then that’s all that people see.” Jungeun holds her breath when Jinsol pauses, then continues. “I think that’s why I went off on you a couple of days ago. Being underestimated sucks, but it hurts more knowing that I’ve done everything I could to get to that point.”

It’s painful to see Jinsol talk like this when she’s usually so exuberant, so determined, so full of _life_. Jungeun doesn’t know when the switch inside her flipped, but it has. She wants to yell from rooftops and hammer the words down until Jinsol believes her: _you deserve everything._ _You like to come to school hungover on Mondays, you hold the class record for the number of phone suspensions for texting under the desk, you spend more time arguing with the teacher than doing your work, you infuriate me to no end with your blatant facetiousness when it comes to academics, and none of that matters. You still deserve it all. I’m sorry._

But that would be embarrassing, and Jungeun doesn’t have the stomach to climb to the roof right now. So instead, she quells the hammering of her heart and blurts, “I wished I was more like you.”

“You…wished you were lonelier? Not sure that’s supposed to be the main takeaway here,” Jinsol jokes. 

She shakes her head. “I was – well, jealous isn’t the right word. Maybe envious? I envied you for all the things you managed to do. I never really got to explore my life outside of homework and tests and assignments. I thought it would be worth it because I’d be better than everyone else, but honestly? I wish that I had more fun or did something more worthwhile instead of participating in a rat race that only existed in my head. I wish I didn’t push you away. Maybe things could’ve been better for the both of us.”

The admission lies in shards on the floor, right between the handful of inches separating their shoes. The pill is bitter, but it isn’t as hard to swallow as she thought it would be. Maybe it’s the way Jinsol is looking at her, eyes wide with wonder, or maybe it’s the liminality of the space between them; heels planted on stone, toes suspended mid-air. Schrödinger's free fall. 

For the first time, Jungeun feels like she can breathe. 

“I wish we could’ve been friends, too,” Jinsol says honestly. “Would’ve saved us a lot of trouble, huh?”

“Dahyun would’ve had fewer migraines, at least,” Jungeun jokes.

“Poor Haseul. Remember when she blew a gasket because we couldn’t stop bickering during math?”

“Or when she threw a test tube at my head that time the three of us were grouped together for a lab project because we kept arguing about whether the Bunsen burner flame was blue enough for us to start boiling said test tube.”

“I forgot about that! You pulled out a color chart just to prove your point.”

“And I ended up being right,” Jungeun boasts, pretending to cover her ears when Jinsol playfully boos her. “Pretty sure I won most of our battles, to be honest.”

The blonde gasps, scandalized. “As if! What about that time I knocked you out cold during that one soccer match in PE and won my team a straight week of pizza privileges for lunch? You suck as a goalie, by the way.”

Jungeun winces from the memory. The ball smacking her face, her lower lip digging into the serrated surface of the braces she wore during freshman year, the salty tang of blood and saliva seeping across her tongue. “That actually hurt,” she pouts. “I still have a scar on my inner lip because of you.”

“Really? Oh no.” Jinsol immediately slides closer, her eyebrows furrowing in concern. Before either of them knows it, Jungeun feels a hand cupping her chin and a thumb skimming across her lip, gently nudging it downward. They’re close enough that she can practically taste the mix of alcohol and peaches from Jinsol’s breath, disorienting in the most delectable way. The proximity is a sudden rush of blood straight to the head. 

They lock eyes. Through the haze, one thing sharpens into clarity. Jungeun uses what’s left of the functioning part of her brain to conjure another list:

  * Jinsol is ridiculously pretty, and there’s nothing she wants more in this exact moment than to kiss this girl 



_Sometimes, it just takes you for a ride._

She doesn’t know who leans in first. Jinsol’s lips are suddenly on hers, tasting of the fading remnants of lipstick and something much more intoxicating than beer. Jungeun instinctively presses back against her. It’s the push-and-pull, the give-and-take. The free fall. 

They’re kissing. They’re kissing, and there are fireworks behind Jungeun’s eyelids, bursting with the color of blonde hair and smoky eyeliner and pink lips. Jinsol’s tongue tastes like she just drank two liters of peach schnapps. It’s pleasantly sweet, nothing like how gross Jungeun thought a first kiss would be. 

Jinsol pulls away to smile her glittery smile, the one reaches the crescent moons of her eyes and the apples of her cheeks. Jungeun’s breath catches at the sight. And then it catches some more when Jinsol’s hand, the one that was previously cradling her jaw, falls to her shoulder, her chest, and then her waist, leaving a burning hot trail across her body.

“Hey, it’s already Saturday,” Jinsol whispers, bright and lovely against the cold bathroom walls. “We’re technically no longer high school students.”

Warmth blooms in Jungeun’s chest. 

“Happy graduation,” she breathes. Jinsol responds by capturing it with another searing kiss. It’s messy: Jungeun winces when Jinsol’s teeth bump into her lips, their limbs fumble awkwardly against each other when Jinsol maneuvers the small space to straddle Jungeun’s thighs, and there’s a toilet within an arm’s reach, for god’s sake. 

It’s messy, it’s real, and it feels a little like magic. 

* * *

**SATURDAY**

In hindsight, if she knew that the sun was powerful enough to bake her hungover brain inside out like a pot of bubbling lasagna, she wouldn’t have traded the juice box for beer. As it were, Jungeun blacks out for a second when her foot lands on the sidewalk, almost face-planting on the school’s parking lot. The sound of a car door slamming shut extends the pain by three more seconds. 

“You okay?” Hyunjin asks from the other side. She tosses her a pair of sunglasses and a bottle of Pocari Sweat, which Jungeun barely manages to catch. “I told you not to go too heavy for your first time.”

“I thought I would have a mild headache. I didn’t know it would feel like someone conked my skull with a sledgehammer,” Jungeun growls. The Pocari is refreshing, at least, and she downs a third of the drink as they saunter towards the adjacent soccer field in their caps and gowns. It turns out that this act nearly kills her, for she was too invested in gulping down electrolytes to register the screech of tires on uneven concrete and a similarly-pitched voice screaming, “Class of Twenty-Twenty, bitches!” out the window. Hyunjin has to yank her by the sleeve to avoid getting mowed down, and they cough incredulously from the sudden cloud of dust and gravel.

The car parks haphazardly and out stumble Hyejoo and Chaewon, clutching their caps to their heads with abject fear in their eyes. 

“Are we alive?” Jungeun hears Chaewon moan.

“She’s insane,” Hyejoo answers shakily.

Yerim pops out of the driver’s seat with a smile rivaling the sun. “Woo! That was fun!”

Jungeun blinks the dust out of her eyes. _Choi Yerim has a future in stunt driving. Who knew._

“Wow, crazy to think we’re finally graduating, huh? I’m gonna miss seeing all of you guys every day. Who else is gonna have the guts to verbally fact-check the teachers like you do, Jungeunie?” Yerim pouts, before brightening again. “Oh my gosh, I totally forgot! Hyunjin! We’ll be seeing each other in three months!”

Jungeun shoots a questioning look at Hyunjin, who merely shrugs. “Yerim, you’re going to Yonsei?”

“Yep,” she answers, popping the ‘p’. “I’ll be studying in the College of Engineering.”

Chaewon does the peace sign. “Same. I’m going to Korea University, though.”

“I’m the only one not going to college,” Hyejoo chimes in. “The Seoul branch of Google offered me a position as a software developer. It’s not Apple, but,” she inspects her fingernails, “it’s still pretty tight.” Yerim and Chaewon pat her in the back, vocalizing their pride, and she visibly preens. 

Jungeun smiles to herself. The pounding in her head has barely ceased, and the heat has annoyingly started to make itself known under their gowns, but standing here, one foot on the Mickey Mouse-shaped pothole that Heejin often trips on when they leave school, surrounded by people who, somewhere along last night, have grown from strangers to people she’d actually like to be friends with – there’s sadness, yes, but there’s anticipation, too; a bittersweet feeling left on a high note. 

This is _it_. High school is over, and everyone is going their separate ways. No more throwing pencils at Hyejoo when she’s being rowdy, no more passing torn loose-leaf notes containing answers to last night’s cram school exercises and off-handed comments about Chaewon’s newest dye job to Hyunjin. No more enduring cotton candy-scented smoke wafting from Sooyoung’s seat because Dahyun is too hip to rat a student out, no more ‘accidentally’ kicking Jinsol’s chair when her head starts drooping too close to her chest. 

But that doesn’t have to mean no more _them_ , does it? And since their universities – and Hyejoo’s gig – aren’t too far from each other…

“Why don’t we all meet up in Gangnam-gu once in a while? To catch up, destress, and whatnot,” she suggests. “Bonus: since Hyejoo’s the only one with a job, she’ll have to treat us barbecue every month.”

“Hey!” Hyejoo protests, but Yerim cuts her off with a hand to her mouth. Hyunjin snickers at the play-fighting, opting to bat the tassel hanging off of Hyejoo’s cap to provoke her even further. 

“Sounds good, nerd,” Chaewon approves with a satisfied nod. “I’ll ring up the Sungkyunkwan kids, too. Sooyoung’s the only one I trust to sell the good stuff on this side of the peninsula, and if she comes, so will Jiwoo.” She makes the whipping motion with her hand, mouthing ‘wha-pashhh’. “That girl is loaded as hell. We can double the barbecue parties.”

“Triple if I bring Jinsol.”

“Hell yeah.” Jungeun returns Chaewon’s fist bump. “Now, come on. I think Vice Principal Lee is about to pop a vein waiting for everyone to get seated.”

Vice Principal Lee, it turns out, requires another fifteen minutes to wrangle with the microphone until it stops screeching every time she raises it to her lips. Her speech is quick and concise, and despite her subpar event organization skills (Jungeun swears she feels her butt sinking into the plastic chair that has become bizarrely soft from sitting too long under the sun), everyone claps enthusiastically when she makes her exit to the left of the stage, allowing Principal Jeong to announce the start of the procession.

Yerim nearly trips from trying to skip up the stairs. Sooyoung does a cartwheel across the stage and knocks over the microphone stand. Heejin performs an intricate jutsu hand seal that distracts Principal Jeong from his visual cue. Haseul does the sane thing and walks from one side to the other without a fuss. Jinsol twirls her diploma like a baton and blows a kissy face to the cheering crowd; Jungeun pretends that her cheeks are red from the heat and not something else. Hyunjin does the chorus routine to Hoedown Throwdown and accidentally punts her cap to the ground. Jiwoo squeals so loud when having her tassel moved that the sound reverberates through the speakers and causes audio feedback for half a minute. 

When Jungeun’s turn arrives, she strides to the stage with grass tickling at her heels, feeling the weight finally dissipate from her shoulders. Principal Jeong whispers, “Good job, kiddo,” as he shakes her hand, she thanks him in return, and then it’s over. Just like that. 

Chaewon yells, “I’m free! Worst experience of my fucking life!”, costing her a glare from the faculty sitting in the front row. Hyejoo looks like she’d rather take a nap than have her diploma handed to her, her bored face not moving a muscle the entire time. Finally, Vivi caps off the cohort with an obligatory speech in her native Cantonese, an act that flies over every single person’s head except Jackson, who breaks the polite, confused silence with occasional ‘WOO!’s and ‘GA YAO!’s. By Jungeun’s guess, Vivi might actually be cussing out every single person in attendance and getting away with it. 

“That was a beautiful speech, Miss Wong! Really profound, I’m sure. Thank you for representing the Yow Kam Yuen College in this year’s academic exchange program. As always, it is our mission to foster cross-cultural awareness in our students, and your presence has been the utmost delight for us,” Principal Jeong says, cheerful and unbothered in his too-tight black tux. “To the class of 2020, before I offer my final congratulations and let you celebrate this momentous occasion – not now, Kim Yerim, please lower your iPad and refrain from livestreaming – I’d like to call upon this year’s valedictorian to say a few words.” He imitates a drum roll to build suspense, but it’s practically useless. A hundred pairs of eyes turn to Jungeun. “Kim Jungeun, we welcome you to the stage.”

It still feels surreal, walking to the stage again with the student body cheering her on. Jungeun straightens the neatly folded piece of paper on the podium with shaky hands. When she looks up, Jinsol enthusiastically waves at her from the ‘J’ section, her blonde hair glowing in the sea of blue. Very Troy-and-Gabriella à la High School Musical 3. Jungeun thinks she kinda gets the whole time-slows-down-at-the-sight-of-their-face thing, as embarrassing as it is to admit.

“Hi, I’m Jungeun,” she starts. Someone, probably Hyunjin, yells, “we know!”, eliciting laughter from the crowd. The sound ignites a rush of confidence in her veins, and Jungeun straightens her back. 

“Last week, I’d give anything to stand here and deliver the speech I’ve painstakingly re-written and re-edited for the past three years. I’m not joking; this file has been on my computer since late 2017.” A low chuckle rumbles in the audience as she waves the paper around. “But to be honest, none of this matters. Because I don’t know if I can stand by all this crap about rising to the top anymore, and the last thing I want to be today is disingenuous.” 

She takes a deep breath. “The truth is, I was scared of you. I felt like I constantly had to prove that I was better than you. And it sucked, because you made everything seem so effortless. All I could see were people slacking off, playing around in class, or skimming on exams, while I was losing my mind trying to fit in another competition on my planner. It never occurred to me that it was okay to slow down once in a while. It never occurred to me that I had something to learn from you. From everyone.” 

“There’s a quote, you know: ‘once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.’ This week has been my storm. _You_ have been my storm.”

Confusion ripples through the crowd, but the person Jungeun has her eyes trained on looks straight back at her, shining brilliantly with a proud smile. 

The early summer breeze suddenly blows through, a well-appreciated reprieve that tousles the skinny trees lining the edges of the field and causes the washed-out grass to dance under people’s feet. Her gaze sweeps across familiar faces, pausing each time it lands on one of her friends. She wills this moment to immortalize in her bones. 

“This part’s over, and we’ll never get it back. But it was beautiful while it lasted, wasn’t it? It was beautiful, and it will continue to be beautiful, because the storm is never going to go away. College, jobs, adulthood – they’re all waiting to kick our asses. Things will be hard, it’ll be painful and exhausting and there are going to be times when you’ll find yourself on the verge of giving up, so find someone to weather it with you. Wherever you’re going, don’t forget to pick up some friends along the way. I’ve found that a game of Truth or Drink is a good place to get started.”

The applause that erupts is roaring, united. Before she knows it, a hundred graduation caps are in the air, pentagon stars climbing its way to the sky to mark the end of an era. Right before she leaves the podium, Jungeun grabs the mic one last time and yells, “and Dahyun? I’m turning in my assignment.”

She runs back to the dispersing crowd. Her classmates are buzzing with barely contained energy and the thrill is downright infectious. Jungeun manages to get a glimpse of Hyunjin’s dark hair before a body bounces right into her.

“That was epic! You threw away that piece of paper just like in the movies.” Jinsol grabs her arms and starts shaking them. “And I can’t believe you used that quote, oh my god. You said you hated that book!” 

“I had a change of heart.” 

Said heart goes haywire when the blonde blushes prettily under the afternoon sun. Jungeun’s just glad that Jinsol is picking up what she’s putting down. 

“Well, since you’re a changed woman…wanna go to the bowling alley and hang out?”

“Like, right now? In our graduation attire?”

“Does a better outfit exist? Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to look good on camera later, since you clearly don’t have experience with it.”

“…alright, I’m in.”

  
  
  
  
  


  * _She’s pretty bad at this_


  * _Aww, she looks adorable when her ball lands in the gutter_


  * _Maybe I should buy snacks for us?_


  * _Stop thinking about asking her to be roommates, Jesus!_



**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i had so much fun writing this, i'm gonna miss living in nerd jungeun's head :)
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/sleepyshamrocks)/[cc](https://curiouscat.qa/sleepyshamrocks)


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